Frank Marshall was the first producer whose name I ever learned. It was slapped across the back of so many of my VHS cases that it was impossible to ignore his name. BACK TO THE FUTURE, THE LAND BEFORE TIME, WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, and HOOK all owe a producing credit of some kind to the man, not to mention his directorial work on two of my favourite childhood films, CONGO and ARACHNOPHOBIA. Marshall doesn’t dip into directing often and with JURASSIC WORLD and ASSASSIN’S CREED on his producing list some may have thought he’d be a bit of a busy bunny over the next few years.
However, Marshall is going to fit in some directorial work in the form of THE LONGEST NIGHT, a true-life shipwreck drama based on a GQ article by Sean Flynn. Taking us back to Easter Sunday 2008, the film will follow a coast guard rescue of 42 of 47 people aboard an Alaskan trawler despite terrible conditions. Jonathan Lemkin, writer of LETHAL WEAPON 4 and THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE is adapting the article into script form. This sounds like it could be both a tense tale of survival, as well as an uplifting tale of survival and heroism.
Source: THR
